Encouraging Innovation in Locating and Characterizing Underground Utilities (2009)

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9C H A P T E R 2 MethodologyThis chapter outlines the procedures used and the types of data collected that form the basis for the recommendations made. Two formal information-search methodologies were used to (1) determine current issues as perceived by transportation agency personnel and utility-locating or SUE firms, and to (2) search for emerging technologies for utility locating and characterization and for relevant technological developments in other fields. Identification of Current Issues Questionnaires to Agencies and Utility Locating Firms Two questionnaires were developed to collect data on the cur- rent issues and perceptions within the industry. The first ques- tionnaire asked public agency transportation designers and their design consultants to identify current issues. This ques- tionnaire was developed with input from SUE consultants and current and former state department of transportation (DOT) utility engineers. Questions were designed for a wide range of anticipated issues such as education, policy, technology, costs, and agency expectations. This first questionnaire was presented to DOT utility direc- tors at the 2007 AASHTO Right-of-Way and Utility Confer- ence. Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia were represented at this meeting. Representatives from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the American Associa- tion of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) also participated. The chair of the utility committee requested participation from all attendees; 16 individuals responded. It was also presented to all Washington State DOT design managers and the ASCE branch officers within the states of Washington, Arizona, and Alabama. In total, out of 210 questionnaires, 43 were returned, for a response of 20%. A sum- mary of the responses to the first questionnaire is provided in Table 2.1. In this table, answers are given to the request to “Rank the issues for not mapping utilities accurately and comprehen- sively during the design stages of a project. Rank from 1 (mostimportant) to 10 (least important).” For each issue, the num- ber of people ranking that issue at each importance level is given. Thus, for the issue “Getting good information takes too long,” 10 respondents ranked this issue as most important, and 20 out of the 35 respondents ranked the issue as one of the top three issues listed. On the other hand, for the issue, “I’m will- ing to gamble on a project-by-project basis that utilities won’t be a problem,” 12 respondents ranked this as the least impor- tant reason for not mapping utilities accurately. Not all respon- dents answered all questions. Hence, the total number of responses varies from issue to issue. The results shown in Table 2.1 are generally well distributed. Cost, time, and lack of management support to locate utilities appear to be the largest issues. The response to the issue that current equipment just is not good enough indicates that a majority of the designers responding believe that equipment capability was not among the most important issues. It is not clear, however, whether this results from a high expectation of equipment capabilities or because other issues at present are seen to predominate. From the agency engineers’ and trans- portation designers’ points of view, it seems that a multifaceted approach to encouraging innovation is warranted, one that includes education and policy suggestions and technology that may address the time and costs needed to accurately and com- prehensively identify and map utilities. The desire for and relative importance of characterization data were also solicited from the first questionnaire. The sum- mary of responses is shown in Table 2.2. Owner, size, and type of utility are clearly important to the respondents. The origin of data and encasement status are important issues but are not critical. Type of backfill and material are least important. However, all characterization data are important to some select respondents. Other relevant comments and suggestions from the first questionnaire, in no particular order, follow: • Require utility owners to use computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) for relocation as-built drawings, show

10Importance of Issue for Inaccurate Location of Utilities, Ranked Highest (1) to Lowest (8 or Greater) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ≥ 8 Issue Number of Responses Per Importance Level Utility records are usually good enough for design work 5 5 5 3 1 3 1 6 Getting good information costs too much 9 9 5 3 1 2 1 3 Getting good information takes too long 10 5 5 1 3 4 4 3 I tried getting utility information from specialized consultants and had problems 3 3 1 5 4 1 0 9 Utilities are a construction problem 6 2 1 4 2 4 2 8 Current equipment to find utilities just isn’t good enough 1 2 2 2 5 1 4 9 The one-call center does a good enough job 5 3 6 1 2 2 3 4 Utilities are the utility owners’ problem 3 2 8 1 3 1 1 9 We don’t get management support to spend money on utility issues in design 8 4 5 4 2 0 3 4 I’m willing to gamble on a project-by-project basis that utilities won’t be a problem 3 3 2 0 0 2 1 12 I don’t know enough about the costs or time to relocate utilities to have a good answer 4 2 1 3 1 0 1 7 Note: See discussion in the text for more explanation on the response numbers. Table 2.1. Summary of Responses from Transportation Owner and Designer Personnel to the First Questionnairedepth on records, maintain accurate records, and pay for all expenses from bad location information. • Require state DOTs to require SUE. • Get one-call agencies to do designer tickets. • Develop public geospatial databases.Importance of Determining Characteristic, Ranked Highest (1) to Lowest (>8) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ≥ 8 Number of Responses per Utility Characteristics Importance Level Owner of utility 20 5 7 4 3 0 0 2 Age of utility 1 2 3 6 8 6 4 5 Size of utility 10 7 11 8 0 1 0 1 Type of utility 22 15 2 3 1 0 0 0 Where utility data came from 4 5 3 5 8 4 2 6 Condition of utility 2 2 4 3 7 7 5 4 Encasement or direct buried 4 0 2 5 11 8 4 3 Type of backfill / paving 2 0 3 0 1 2 5 17 Type of material 3 1 2 3 5 3 5 12 Note: See discussion in the text for more explanation on the response numbers. Table 2.2. Relative Importance of Utility Characterization Data• Require professional survey/GPS for as-built information. • Mandate use of the Standard Guidelines for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data (1). • Require utilities to be shown correctly after relocation. • Get high-quality mapping early. • Educate all stakeholders. A second questionnaire was developed to solicit information from firms whose business includes locating and characteriz- ing utilities. An Internet search with key words “subsurface utility engineering” and “locating” was performed. This search netted 128 firms whose Web pages included SUE or utility locating services; the second questionnaire was sent to all of them. Of the 12 respondents, 11 are firms with significant SUE contracts with at least one state DOT. One contract locating firm responded. Follow-up phone calls were placed to some of the nonre- sponding firms in an attempt to discover reasons for the low response. Universally, the answers were that (1) the firm was not in business to locate all utilities, or (2) they did not typi- cally work in the design stage of transportation projects. Responses from the second questionnaire as to which util- ity type presents the most problems on projects are shown in Table 2.3. Other Contacts In addition to the two questionnaires, an effort was made through personal communication to solicit the experiences of

11Type of Utility No. of Responses as Largest Problem Telecom 19 Electric 13 Water 12 Storm 11 Sanitary 10 Product pipelines 9 Gas 8 Services 7 Table 2.3. Utilities Presenting the Largest Problems for Transportation Projectsindividuals with long careers in utility locating, subsurface utility engineering, one-call damage prevention, technology development, and transportation engineering. Some of the responses were verbal and some were written. Individuals and companies in the transportation and utility sectors were con- tacted at conferences, over the phone, and through e-mail and asked for their thoughts on and experiences in identifying, locating, mapping, and characterizing utilities and encourag- ing best practices and innovation. Their responses varied, but many of the views on critical aspects of utility locating were consistent. There was a common view that difficult-to-locate utilities are predominantly those that are nonmetallic, that have no access points to insert a conductor or sonde, or that have long stretches between access points. It was also noted that metal- lic utilities that are buried beneath or near other sources of metal, such as other utilities, paving reinforcing steel, fences, and guardrails, pose a challenge. Respondents indicated that with a sufficiently large budget, unlimited time, total access to utility structures, records, and select personnel, there are few situations in which the vast majority of utilities could not be located with existing tech- nology. Exceptions include nonmetallic fiber-optic lines or other small-diameter, nonmetallic utilities (especially those deeper than 2 ft, directionally drilled, and with no associated trench), extremely deep utilities (in excess of 20 ft), and util- ities within certain geographic areas in which ambient con- ditions create a poor signal-to-noise ratio for geophysical survey methods. It was considered more difficult to indirectly obtain utility characterization data than utility location data. Most data could only be inferred through physical access to the utility or through utility records. Opinions were also solicited on how to mitigate problems and encourage innovation. The discussion of these topics can be found in chapters 4, 5, and 6.Technology Search Literature Search Process A wide-ranging literature search was carried out—building on the existing literature search performed in 1999–2000 for the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) discussed later in this section, the technical reference database of the Trenchless Technology Center, and the reference lists of project partici- pants. The updated literature search was initiated with assis- tance from the National Agricultural Library, which had been involved in the previous FLC study managed by Kate Hayes. The literature sources were grouped according to the applica- tion area—for example, locating or characterizing technolo- gies, product information, problem discussions, case studies, and legislation. Most literature sources were annotated as to content and relevance and the most pertinent findings and technology advances extracted for analysis and discussion by the project team. Specific references cited in the report are pro- vided in the reference sections at the end of each chapter, and a selected broader bibliography of pertinent reports, papers, articles, patents, and companies is provided in Appendix A. Patent Search Process The patent search again built on the previous FLC study and was initiated by the National Agricultural Library and contin- ued by the project team members. The list of patents identified is not included in this report, but it was reviewed to identify specific new technological developments and research and development trends. Statement of Need Process The FLC has developed several statements of need (SON) for problems affecting U.S. industry or public interests. The process is intended to identify commercially available, emerging, and noncommercialized technologies that are potentially useful in solving the problem identified. Information on potentially applicable technologies or research developments is solicited from researchers in federal laboratories and selected universi- ties. The first step is to develop a SON that contains an adequate definition of the criteria—for example, the most important range of applications and the approximate range of acceptable costs for a commercialized technology—that technological improvements must meet in order to address the problem and to provide a significant advance over current practice. This SON helps to focus attention on the most applicable technolo- gies rather than on any potentially related technologies. The SON is developed with input from the affected industry and other interested parties. Once completed, the SON is then circulated to researchers in federal laboratories and selected universities to solicit their

12input on technologies that may have application. These may include technologies that are used in other fields but have not yet been applied to the identified problem, technologies that are currently under development for other purposes that may have application to the current problem, and novel research findings for which applications are not fully understood. A SON process had previously been used by the authors at the request of the FLC in 1999 (2) and a summary report pre- pared (3). This process was repeated during the current study to measure the progress of previously identified technologies and to discover currently developing technologies that could have application to buried utility location and characterization. The major change from the previous SON was to solicit infor- mation on field characterization technologies for underground utilities in addition to field locating technologies. • The SON was distributed directly to a wide range of indi- viduals representing major engineering, utilities, research, and technology transfer organizations, including the ASCE; Common Ground Alliance (CGA); National Utilities Con- tractor Association (NUCA); FLC; Tech Transfer Society, D.C. Chapter; National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer and Commercialization; and the Association of University Technology Managers. • It was distributed to 15 company representatives who partic- ipated in the 1999–2000 project. In some cases, announce- ments were sent to multiple company participants or company e-mail addresses to ensure that the companies received the notification. • It was distributed to five federal laboratory researchers who participated in the 1999–2000 project, including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Department of Energy (DOE), DOT, Army, and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, Tech Transfer Office. • It was distributed to the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Tech Transfer Office, an NIH grantee at the Department of Radiology at the University of Chicago, and to the editor of the Federal Technology Watch and the Technology Commercialization newsletters. • The SON was placed on the Trenchless Technology Center Web site, and during the many external contacts made dur- ing the project, individuals were made aware of the SON and encouraged to respond. In particular, over 60 related organizations, departments, and associations were con- tacted by phone and e-mail to determine current activities in relation to underground utility locating and characteri- zation (see below). No formal response form was required and, hence, it is not possible to identify specifically how many responses to the SON were received. However, an extensive range of individu- als and organizations were made aware of the technologysearch and had the opportunity to respond with potential tech- nological advances. Organizational Contacts and Special Information Sources A wide range of organizations were contacted during this study, including contacts at more than 60 organizations identified by the Common Ground Alliance Research and Development Committee as being potentially linked to utility damage- prevention issues. The list of organizations contacted and their response in terms of activities related to underground utilities is provided in Appendix C. Some organizations that merit identification are briefly introduced below as they are actively pursuing innovation and advances in dealing with underground utility problems. The list is not intended to be comprehensive but rather illustra- tive in nature, and information from these organizations will be returned to later in the report. • Common Ground Alliance: The alliance grew out of a study of one-call systems and damage-prevention best practices sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Special Programs Administration, Office of Pipeline Safety, as authorized by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21). It has since become a major organization working to improve practices and tech- nologies related to damage prevention for buried utilities and pipelines. It has a structured membership based on util- ity sectors and roles and a wide range of subcommittees— including an R&D committee. • Gas Technology Institute: The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) was formed by a merger of the Gas Research Insti- tute and the Gas Technology Center. The group has con- ducted research related to the gas sector since 1941. GTI has a wide range of research related to utility locating and characterization. • United Kingdom Water Industry Research: The United King- dom Water Industry Research (UKWIR) organization has been at the heart of many recent U.K. and European initia- tives to improve the way in which buried utilities are designed and managed. Some of its initiatives are outlined below and discussed in later chapters of the report. • European Street Works Research Advisory Council: The Euro- pean Street Works Research Advisory Council (ESWRAC) is led by UKWIR and involves utilities across Europe. It has successfully lobbied for £3.5 million (∼US$7 million at 2008 exchange rates) of European Commission research on asset location and condition assessment. • GIGA: Ground-penetrating radar innovative research for highly reliable robustness/accuracy gas pipe detection/ location. This project involved six main European partners:

13Gaz de France, European Gas Group (GERG), Ingegneria dei Sistemi SpA (IDS), OSYS Technology, Thales Air Defence, and Tracto-Technik. The GIGA project was partly supported by the European Commission’s Fifth Framework Program for Community Research, Energy, Environment and Sus- tainable Development (Contract # ENK6-CT-2001-00506). The main activities of the GIGA project, which lasted from 2001 to 2003, were planned to try to overcome some “intrinsic” limitations of currently available ground- penetrating radar (GPR). A description of some of the tech- nology advances pursued and a discussion of the testing of some IDS equipment configurations are provided in chapter 6. • ORFEUS: This is an EU-supported project being under- taken by a consortium of nine organizations consisting of equipment developers, user organizations, and academic institutions (4). It has two aims: – To improve the performance of GPR deployed on the surface to provide underground maps; and – To develop a new radar to provide a look-ahead capabil- ity for horizontal directional drilling equipment. The three-year project, which began in late 2006, is valued at x5 million (∼US$7.5 million), 50% of which is contributed by the European Commission’s 6th R&D Framework Program (http://www.orfeus-project.eu/). • Mapping the Underworld: This is a £1 million (∼US$2 mil- lion) research project funded by the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with cofunding of £200,000 (∼US$400,000) from UKWIR for industry liaison, which is being led by the University of Birmingham. It consists of four research subprojects cov- ering location technology (led by the University of Birm- ingham), mapping (University of Nottingham), data integration (University of Leeds) and asset tagging (Uni- versity of Oxford), and an Engineering Program Network for academe-industry interaction. Dr. Chris Rogers, one of the team members for this report, is the principal investigator for the Mapping the Underworld project. A bid worth £3.3 million (∼US$6.6 million) is being sub- mitted to take the location technology program forward beyond its initial feasibility stage. • Office of Pipeline Safety/Pipeline and Hazardous Materi- als Safety Administration: The Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) is the federal safety authority for ensuring the safe, reli- able, and environmentally sound operation of the nation’s pipeline transportation system. It is part of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) which, in turn, is one of 10 agencies within the U.S. DOT. PHMSA works to protect the American public and the environment by ensuring the safe and secure movement of hazardous materials to industry and consumers by all trans- portation modes, including the nation’s pipelines. Through PHMSA, the department develops and enforces regulationsfor the safe, reliable, and environmentally sound operation of the nation’s 2.3 million mile pipeline transportation sys- tem. PHMSA has an ongoing research program related to pipeline safety. • VISTA: The VISTA project is a £2.4 million (∼US$4.8 mil- lion) project funded by the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and managed by UKWIR. The project is being carried out by the University of Leeds and the Uni- versity of Nottingham and is taking forward the results of the research conducted under the respective Mapping the Underworld subprojects. The project will investigate the use of global navigation satellite technology linked to exist- ing asset records to produce 3-D images of utilities’ under- ground assets. More specifically, the objective is to develop methods to integrate the diverse records of assets held by numerous utility service providers into a single common database with common attribute information, and develop protocols for sharing of the data and updating the infor- mation as amendments or additions to the buried infra- structure occur. This, like Mapping the Underworld, is one element of a £10 million (∼US$20 million) assets location research program, of which £7 million (∼US$14 million) had already been initiated in April 2007. See also ESWRAC, Mapping the Underworld, and UKWIR for associated U.K. initiatives and organizations. • The Construction Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers: The Construction Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (CI/ASCE) formed a utility com- mittee in 1998 to address issues, to develop and promote standards, and to provide continuing education in the util- ity issues facing professionals in the broad construction industry. They published CI-ASCE 38-02, Standard Guide- line for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data, in 2002. This national engineering standard is updated every five years to address changes in the practice of subsurface utility engineering as they relate to utility mapping. It looks not at the technology, but rather at the processes used by the project owner and engineer to get utility information on plan documents. Case History Search One line of investigation for the literature search was to find case history examples of utility problems on projects and how they were addressed, successfully or otherwise, and to find case history examples of the selection and application of utility locating and characterization technologies. This proved to be a difficult process in terms of finding sufficient information to properly describe a case history for meaningful analysis. There are many reports of utility damage events, and it is possible also in many cases to find the general cause of utility damage events. However, there is much less reported information on utility locating and characterization activities done for planning pur-

14poses or problems that did not result in a catastrophic event or physical utility damage. Selected case histories of procedures are included in Appendix B, and a summary of the implications derived from the case histories is provided in chapter 6. An electronic version of the case history information has been pre- pared and is searchable using selected keywords to find case histories that may be the most closely relevant to a planned project. This database is available by contacting the Trenchless Technology Center. Synthesis Process Through the literature search, SON process, attendance at national and international meetings, and various organiza- tional contacts, the research team amassed a considerable amount of data. Identifying the common and critical applica- tion and procedural issues and the most promising avenues of technology development was carried out through team discus- sions and many external discussions of team members with industry colleagues. In developing the targeted research recommendations, it was decided to first select (see chapter 6) a moderately broad range of avenues of improvement that offered the best potential for technology enhancement and improvements in practical results. This list was too extensive to fit the scale of the planned SHRP 2 research effort and hence a further selection was carried out to identify those activities that provide the strongest potential of short- to medium-term impacts, that would fit with the nature of activities appropri- ate for SHRP 2 and that would allow reasonable progress to be made within the budget of approximately $5 million expected to be available. Ranking Process Using the list composed of the nine main avenues identified for improvement, the draft report and a ranking form wascirculated to an external panel, including state DOT person- nel, municipal and major infrastructure facility personnel, utility owners, contractors, and one-call center and locating personnel. A total of 14 individuals (9 external and 5 from the project team) completed the ranking procedure using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (5), which involves a pairwise comparison of alternatives by individuals within decision- making groups. The final result of the report’s first phase was, thus, a ranked list of technology and process improvements considered to offer the most impact on transportation projects in the near- to mid-term and with the budget and time schedule for fund- ing available within the SHRP 2 program. Development of Project Descriptions Phase 2 of this project then developed project descriptions for each of the nine targeted improvements. The development of these recommendations and the resulting project descrip- tions are described in chapter 7. References 1. American Society of Civil Engineers. Standard Guidelines for the Col- lection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data. ASCE Stan- dard No. CI/ASCE 38-02, ASCE, Reston, Va., 2002, 20 pp. 2. Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer. Statement of Need-Utility Locating Technologies 1999. FLC, 1999, p. 19. http:// www.nal.usda.gov/ttic/utilfnl.htm. 3. Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer. Utility Locating Technologies: A Summary of Responses to a Statement of Need. Summary Report, FLC, 2000, p. 59. http://www.federallabs.org/ utilities/Presentations/Utility_Locating_Technologies_Report. pdf. 4. Manacorda, G., H. Scott, M. Rameil, R. Courseille, M. Farrimond, and D. Pinchbeck. The ORFEUS Project: A Step Change in Ground Penetrating Radar Technology to Locate Buried Utilities. Presented at ISTT NoDig 2007, Rome, Italy, Sept. 2007. 5. Saaty, T. L. Fundamentals of Decision Making and Priority Theory with the Analytic Hierarchy Process. RWS Publ. 2000 (revised), Pitts- burgh, Pa., 2000, p. 478.